Yet if the past is any indication, closing the “gun show loophole” also won’t easily sail through the Legislature.

In 2013, when Democrats also controlled both the House and Senate, a similar bill passed the House but never made it to the Senate floor in time for a vote, despite passing two Senate committees. At the time, the bill saw heated debate before clearing the lower chamber with eight Republicans joining in support and three Democrats voting against.

Two years later, the bill easily died in the then-Republican controlled House on a party line vote in an early committee.

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An advocate for an animal rights organization says a state representative should step down because he sexually harassed her. The advocate, Laura Bonar, is the Chief program and policy officer for Animal Protection Voters and Animal Protection of New Mexico according to the organization’s website.

The Libertarian Party of New Mexico filed paperwork to name former governor Gary Johnson as its nominee for U.S. Senate. The Secretary of State updated the listing of candidates to include Johnson Tuesday morning after the party filed at 9:30 on Monday, the office said.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich says a former Donald Trump campaign chairman should testify in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee after reports of the former campaign official’s ties to Russia. Heinrich, a member of the committee, said that Paul Manafort must testify “and give the American people the answers they deserve.”
Heinrich cited an Associated Press report that Manafort “secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine anti-Russian opposition across former Soviet republics.”
Manafort worked for Oleg Deripaska, who is a close ally of Putin, for a reported $10 million a year contract.

In a late-night surprise Wednesday in the House of Representatives, Rep. Jim Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, who has missed most of the legislative session because of a heart operation, showed up to help pass a proposed constitutional amendment that would take an extra one percent of interest earnings from New Mexico's $20 billion land grant permanent fund to help pay for early childhood education. The House voted 37-32, mostly along party lines, to pass House Joint Resolution 1, a vote which had been delayed for more than a week, partly because of the Santa Fe legislator's absence.

When retired U.S. Navy Captain and astronaut Mark Kelly asked nine high school students how many knew someone who had been shot, all of them raised their hands. The students were from Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, Santa Fe and two schools on tribal land.

MCALLEN — Every afternoon, dozens of immigrant families released by the U.S. government walk three blocks from the Greyhound bus station in this South Texas border city to a migrant shelter run by Catholic Charities.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — Groups advocating for the rights of children and families detained at the southern border are using the Freedom of Information Act to find out exactly where the Trump administration plans to build migrant detention centers on two military bases in the Southwest.

Joey Peters has been a journalist for nearly a decade. Most recently, his reporting in New Mexico on closed government policies earned several accolades. Peters has also worked as a reporter in Washington DC and the Twin Cities. Contact him by phone at (505) 226-3197.